Scratches and Stitches: A Capperity Collection
by Purpleluva01
Summary: A stitch-work of stories centered around Rarity of Ponyville and Capper Dapperpaws. A whole collection of random drabbles, alternate universes, and a few short series's in the making. Mainly Capper and Rarity-centric with some more Mlp characters appearing now and again.


_**Scratches**_

_**And**_

_**Stitches**_

_**By**_

_**Reptilian-Angel**_

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**ME: Hello again everypony! Me again with some more Capperity love to share!**

**This was originally just to be another collection of 50-100 word prompts all jammed together into a single list of words that I was given from a random word generator to be summed up in a few sentences. But then I realized that I was totally incapable of keeping it brief and decided to give in to make instincts and make this a whole heapin' of drabble chapters instead. And then, I stumbled across a few AU prompt lists on Tumblr and everything kind of went downhill from there.**

**Some of this will be connected, some will not be and others are just going to be whatever plot fillies pop up in my head against my will that I have no choice but to write. If you have any ideas or prompts you like to share, I'm open to hear them. But when you do, all I ask is that you please be respectful.**

**Right now, I'm just going to be posting what I have written up so far but I promise I WILL have more chapters posted before the next decade! Unlike most of my other stories, I regret to say . . .**

**Anywhoser, I own nothing! Please read and review, as they ARE appreciated!**

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**Cruor – Zombies AU**

Capper had never run so fast in his life. And he was an avid runner.

Ever since he had been old enough to toddle in the rough streets of Abyssinia, if he was going anywhere, he was running. It was a basic survival skill to have when you had slippery hands and next to nothing in your pocket if you were rich enough to have that much.

He ran from vexed food stall vendors. He ran from vengeful and then penniless bystanders. He ran from indebted gang members who wanted interests compounded in blood. But right now, as blistered rotting, opened-maw monsters were bringing up the rear, he was sure he was breaking some kind of Equestrian track record three times over.

_Whose crummy idea was it to come here again?_ He thought grouchily as he vaulted over the hood of an abandoned car, its owner either long gone or long since turned. _You hear an entire city's been put on quarantine over some extreme case of rabies. With armed guards, barred fences, the whole she-bang, so what do you do? You "arrange" to have a couple seats for you and your best pal on one of the very few trains still passing through there in hopes of pocketing some easy pickings from the locals. Yeah, it's clear whose fault it is here now that you're now only a few or so feet between from being a conman or a dead man walking. Literally._

He barely missed the swipe of an elderly looking corpse who practically appeared out of nowhere on his right, nearly losing his footing as he lurched away from its grasp. Capper could feel its' vexed, empty stare burning into his back as he ran. Exhaustion was prickling at the edge of his nerves, the muscles in his legs beginning to ache, begging him to stop.

If he wasn't panting, he would have sighed. He had been sprinting like a marathon runner since these things had first leapt out at him and Chummer before he had set even one foot on the Manehatten train station platform. He had just been in the middle of swiping some poor schmuck's wallet had instinct not provoked him to duck at the last second at some inhumane screech. If he hadn't, he would no doubt be joining its friends as they chomped and tore apart the luckless denizen standing right behind him like a macabre buffet.

Capper didn't even register Chummer cursing as he hauled them both out of the train car away from the carnage unleashed on the what few passengers were on the train with them. The shock and confusion only doubled as they both balked at the sight of all the other undead creatures limping and growling all over the Manehatten station.

It all turned into a haze after that, running, adrenaline and thoughts of _gods above what are these things_ exploding in his head as they booked it out of there as fast they could. It had all gone fine for about two miles or three or five or _who the hell cared_ until he realized that he no longer felt Chummer's presence bustling next to him.

He had no time to stop and call out for him, screaming for him and _where he was where he had gone._ Not when the sound of moaning and snarling behind him began to grow in response to the commotion. To them it must've meant fresh meat was here. He could only just make out the smallest sound of Chummer's voice chasing him before Capper restarted his mad dash to whatever the hell ever if it was _away from these things._

An open door came up in the corner of his eye, the back door of some office building someone had left wide-open either in a hurry to get in or get out. With the expanding hoard growing closer behind him, he didn't hesitate. He slammed against the metal door with a grunt before rushing inside and swinging it closed behind him. The bang barely registered to his ears as he tumbled over and up the first few stairs. Another bang of metal on stone wall quickly followed as mindless groans and shrieks chased him up the stairs, bouncing off the gray, corporate walls and chilling his blood.

The stairway felt indiscriminately small and endless then, or maybe Capper was just running short of breath. In either case, complete fright had long since put his respiratory system on auto-pilot, his body falling back on basic survival instincts. _Keep running. Don't look back. Find a way out. Don't get eaten. Don't get jumped. Don't die._

The first step was easy. The rest was easier said than done. Which suddenly got infinitely harder when he felt his coat snag, almost jerking him off his feet. His heart umped into his throat. _Oh gods, please let that just be the railing. PLEASE be the railing please please don't let it be what I think it is._

The insistent tugging on his coat answered his hopeless pleas. He looked down, soulless, blank eyes greeting him and frothing lips screaming spit and blood as he felt himself being pulled backwards. His mind stopped. His heart froze as he fell back. He couldn't even muster the will the react as the closest monster grabbed at his neck and -

Metal sung as it was swung. Red exploded, bright and hot, his face was coated and his coat was released. A hand grabbed his, small petite, warm and _alive_. "Don't just stand there, _move_!"

He was already moving before he agreed, allowing the hand's owner someone's a girl's _a woman's_ to drag him up and away from the now headless body of what was once a human being. Fresh blood splatters filled his sight until he tripped. A sharp curse from the woman, a hard tug on his arm had him back up in under a second, granting him a flash of purple curls and hot, blue eyes.

He lost track of what route they took, two lefts, right, then left and another left before right or was it the other way around? Before finally he fell to the hard ground with a whoosh of air, an abrupt slam of yet another door, much more secure gods be willing, going as quickly as it came.

His heartbeat pounded inside his ears for _one_, _two_, _three_, _four_, _five_, _six_, _seven_ beats. The world lost in white noise, the sound ringing his eardrums mercilessly before fading back into normal dull steady silence. He just realized the heavy puffs of air, frantic and short, were coming from him. His arms shaking badly as he slowly propped himself up on his splashed red arms and pushed. His biceps quivered in protest, the muscles reduced to jelly from exhaustion, his breathing still going too fast and his vision starting to go blurry, blending the already foggy graphite colors of the room into one big ugly smudge.

_Okay, Capper ol' boy. Calm down. Don't start panicking now. You're alive, you're still here you haven't been bitten you're not being eaten alive you ain't dead you're covered in red not dead not __**dead **__Gods those _things _were _**PEOPLE **_and now they're _**not**_and all they see is red _red **red RED** -

"Sir?"

The smallest touch at your back makes you leap with momentary strength which fades away the very next as you crash inelegantly back onto the floor. Your eyes are wide and unfocused, you're sure of this at least, shooting here and there, expecting _blank eyes open mouths hungry for _**you** -

"Sir, please? Please just calm down. It's alright. It's _alright_."

_Alright?_ What's alright? How can everything be alright? The dead are here, there, _everywhere_ -

Small hands cup at your face. Their palms are cool, steady if a little sweaty, soft against the you now realize grainy and dirty texture of your face. Purple white and blue fills your vision as that voice turns from cautious to gentle, sweet. "Sir, please listen. Focus on my voice. Can you understand me? Blink once if you do."

It takes you a second but you do. "Alright, good. Now can you please look at me?"

It takes you a little longer but you do that too. Your breathing very slowly begins to ebb as you start to make out details, a nose, a jawline, light skin, curls of dark and light purple, thick dark lashes framing large blue eyes that said nothing if not concern for you.

The world came back into crystal clear clarity with trepidation, which gave Capper a perfect opportunity to really take in the pretty features of the woman kneeling before him.

She was young, not adolescent but definitely not old. With pale marble skin that was bright and pure instead of pasty and tainted with visible veins and bleeding blisters like the lifeless shells who almost had him for lunch, she almost popped in comparison; never mind the smudges and speckles of grime and blood here and there. Her hair, as curled and as purple as he thought, was a little mussed and askew with flyaway strands but still retained its style of heavy, carefully set curls that could only be found from spending countless hours in a high-end hair salon. Her eyes were what really drew him in, deep azure eyes that sparkled almost in spite of the horrors they had just seen, real soulful, and so blessedly alive that Capper would've wept had he no sense of self-control left.

And he was just about to lean in and say something along those lines like _Hello there angel, did it hurt when you fell down from heaven -_

\- When something soft, silky and smelling of _Pommel No. 5_ rubbed gently against his face, obscuring his vision. _Oh, she was talking._ "- Can't blame you for being so stunned. I would be too if I was as dirty as you are right now." Her voice was light and accented with a high-class lilt and surprisingly noncondenscending. Poised, polite and carrying an air of casual decency as if they were simply chatting over tea. "Which I am, of course, much to my chagrin. Goodness gracious, I can only imagine how frightening I must look to you!"

His half-thought out rebuttal was quickly cut off by the soft thing – _He just then realized was a handkerchief, and a _very_expensive one too judging by the feel._ – wiping over his lips. "But then again given _c-current events, _it's understandable that I don't look my absolute best at the moment. As you do too, I should think."

He noted how her fingertips began to shiver as they brushed the handkerchief over his nose. "Which is not to say that you _don't_ look nice. Because you don't, I mean you _do_! A little muddy and perspiring perhaps but nothing that can't be fixed with a few moist towelettes. Luckily, I'm familiar with every beauty and make-up store in town, so I'm sure there's some we could find at a good price -" Her careful scrubs were becoming shaky pats as something started to click in her voice.

"A-although I doubt we'll get any decent customer service, what with all this awful undead coming to life business going on. Why I wouldn't be surprised if half-" A choked sob was swallowed. "- _H_-_half_ of those shops have been over-overun by n-now."

The handkerchief finally stopped in a choppy mid-stroke on his chin. Capper got another look at her face and immediately wished he hadn't. Pools were welling up in her bright eyes, streaks of mascara and saline already running down her cheeks, mixing with the still wet blood and giving her a grief-stricken, ghoulish look that absolutely did _not_ suit her at all. Her natural beauty looked more suited for runways, gowns and hot front-page magazine covers right off the presses. Without even thinking it through, his hand came up and wiped at her cheek, smudging her liquefied make-up and giving her a start.

"Oh!" Her hands flew to her face, letting her ruined piece of silk flutter unceremoniously to the ground. "I-I'm sorry, do forgive me, I-I-I j-just _can't_ -" Her lips quivered uncontrollably, her voice cracking on the cusps of the repressed sobs on the verge of set loose.

She then looked down at the alarming amount of lifeblood of her hands. Blood that had just been pumping in what was once a person, a living human being just like her. With one swing, it was curtains for them. And she had just _killed_ someone.

Capper could see the last cord of restraint snap within her wide, spilling eyes before swift, heart-wrenching cries heaved from her throat. Her sullied hands flew to her face as she came undone, the sound of her peals shaking her from head to toe and dragging Capper's heart through the mud.

His body reacted before he did; he leaned forward, slowly, gently taking her into his own trembling arms and drawing her close to his chest. He half-expected for her to shove him away, screaming about some strange dirty vagrant daring to touch her, let alone hug her, instead the girl simply pulled herself closer. Her small hands desperately clung to the back of his coat as her restless tears soaked the front of his shirt.

The awful reality of the new, gruesome and terrifying world they've been thrown into unprepared and helpless sunk into them like the weight of the sky on Atlas. He now more than understood the power of the burden the god bore, the air suddenly hard to breathe as his own shoulders grew heavy. He tightened his hold on the sobbing woman, no protest heard as he absently buried his nose into her hair. The scent of what he supposed was once comforting green tea and lavender did nothing to soothe him.

And why would it?

The world around them had instantaneously cracked and fractured into a real-life horror movie nightmare. Beyond the door behind them, the dead walked among what was left of the living. Any soul that tried to get away was chased down like animals and ripped apart by the very monsters that they knew and probably loved in life. Any who tried to fight back, insane or foolhardy, quickly met the same fate. What had started from thin air had already turned the bustling, sleepless city of Manehatten into a City of the Dead in a matter of minutes.

What was it? They didn't know. How did this happen? They didn't know. Why was this happening? They didn't know. Was it just here that it was happening?_They didn't know._ _They didn't know. They didn't know._

They just didn't know.

Capper hadn't even noticed that he had drawn her closer and closer to him with each passing minute, hour, _day_? With humanity suddenly shot to hell, he felt like time had just raced forward like a speeding train out of control. That was probably his ebbing hysteria doing one last con on his mind. He came back to his senses when he realized the woman was no longer crying against him, but still whimpered pitifully as she shifted uncomfortably against him.

He unwound himself from her as carefully as he could, relaxing his embrace and being mindful not to upset her anymore than she already was. She was much quieter now, he noted, but her face was even worse than before. With blue eyes puffy and red, nose sniffling cherry red and the sad remnants of her make-up now ruined beyond repair, lost amongst bloody hand-prints and the leftover sheen of salt and saline.

An odd thought then sprung unbidden in his head. _Jeez, as bad as she looks, I probably look way worse._

A small squeak came from the girl. Capper blinked as he realized he had said that part out loud. "Oh! Uh . . . Sorry, but . . . Yeah."

She only stared at him. The blinked. Stared for half a minute than blinked again. Her lips began to twitch, making him wince. _Oh cripes, please don't start crying again._ _Not because of me -_

"_Pft!_"

It was Capper's turn to blink this time. Wha . . . ?

Her face contorted almost . . . happily(?) at the look on his face. Almost two seconds later, laughter bubbled up from inside her, sputtering past her lips before turning into a full-blown cloud. Newly budded tears pricked from the corners of her shut eyes and a new kind of red bloomed on her cheeks from her mirth, her eyes squeezing shut as her guffaws erased the traces of the angst-filled cries that had sounded not even two minutes ago.

Capper could watch her as she went. The sound of her laughter was throaty, slightly pitchy yet booming and without a doubt the nicest thing he had ever heard. The world was ending yet she was losing it over some random, thoughtless comment he had blurted out. He could even feel his own lips stretching into a smile as a tickle started to climb out of his throat. He settled for a small chuckle.

A couple minutes passed before she finally calmed down. She took a few breaths, pressing a hand to her lips demurely, briefly hiding her grin and cleared her throat like she had an itch. Opening her eyes, he could see that while it was no longer dominant, melancholy still floated in her azure gaze albeit much more calmly than before. He had to say that sadness did not suit such a lady like her. Even if she did look like hell.

"Do forgive me." Her voice was scratchy but earnest. A welcome change from the symphony of groans, cries and anguish he had heard today. "I, I just can't seem to control myself today."

"Uhm, D-Don't worry about it." He said. It suddenly hit him that that sentence was probably the first coherent thing he had said to her. _Whoops. So much for charming being my game._

Something else also came to him. She had mentioned something earlier about being familiar with many cosmetic stores in town, current condition notwithstanding. Maybe not an actual citizen but an active visitor who made good on just that.

That in mind, the life-long conniver in him began to think. In the big city, even a simple case of blush could cost a pretty penny with the help of a designer label and quality of the said product. So just imagine how much green one store can rank in from one type of make-up alone never mind a whole set of products. Judging by this girl's attitude and bearing, she obviously was in the know about every store loaded with cash registers in the whole city of Manehatten. She wasn't dressed too poorly either, her now scratched and dirtied clothes were obviously expertly-made with top quality cloth and stitch-work, so she clearly knew where to get the best of day-to-day wear as well. Which meant plenty more varieties of money to be plucked.

Couple that with the knowledge that security must be next to none in a city whose populace was going down the drain, that equaled to only one thing – The mother of all easy payloads.

And this girl, a youthful, trending city socialite-to-be if he figured right, could be just the thing he needed to get the goods and get out of dodge before he became a part of the menu. Plus, the male in him noted with guiltless appreciation, having such a dazzling beauty on his arm to show-off for might not be all bad at that.

That is, if he could sway the young woman to begin with. Which he had no doubts that he could. _Alright Capper, let's get your groove back._

He gave a small cough. It took not even a second to recollect himself, his posture loosening into proper stature. His voice turned smooth as he slanted his eyes in a suave gaze. "B-But, y'know what, I just realized something," Her perplexed look couldn't help the grin appearing on his face. "Forgive me, miss, but it just only now occurred to me that I never caught the name of my rescuer." He gestured a tanned hand amicably towards her. "That being said, would you be so kind as to tell me?"

Roses bloomed on her cheeks at the smooth tenor of his voice. He held in the laugh. _Bingo._ "Ah! Yes, right, do forgive me! _Again_." She started. "I seem to have completely lost my senses. I mean, honestly, where are my manners?" She then a small attempt to straighten herself out; hands patting down her messy up-do, brushing off her shirt and smoothing her skirt like she doing final checks just before an interview.

Without warning, she turned her lips up into an utterly entrancing smile that made his heart skip a beat. Placing her delicate hand in his, she said in utter politeness, "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir. My name is Rarity. Rarity of Canterlot."


End file.
